Lee A. Jacobus

I was born in East Orange, New Jersey, in 1935, and went to public schools, graduating from Millburn High School. I went to Brown University on a Lackawanna Brown Scholarship and majored in English and American Literature. After a brief fling in heavy industry in Philadelphia, I returned to Brown for an MA in English. I taught at the Mary Wheeler School for a year, while my wife Joanna finished her degree at the Rhode Island School of Design. We then moved to Danbury, Connecticut, in 1960 where I taught for 6 years at Western Connecticut State University. I won a Danforth Teachers Grant to get my Ph.D. in 1966 and in 1968, degree in hand, I joined the English Department at the University of Connecticut. My specialties were John Milton and other 17th century writers — and James Joyce and Modern Irish Literature. I am a member of the Milton Society and the Northeast Milton Seminar as well as the International James Joyce Society. I am also a member of the Authors Guild and the Dramatists Guild as well as the Modern Language Association. I retired from the University of Connecticut on January 1, 2001. Joanna taught dance at the University of Connecticut and Eastern Connecticut State University. We have two children, Sharon Jacobus Benzenhoefer (1958-2009) and James D. Jacobus. I maintain a strong interest in life drawing, photography, and playing the piano and drums, all of which I do in part to inform me in my work in writing about the arts.